


there's a ghost in the mirror (hallelujah, hallelujah)

by arbhorwitch



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 4x02 Coda, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season 4 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:30:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbhorwitch/pseuds/arbhorwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At least when Derek shows up in his bedroom, he's not covered in blood or holding in his guts, so. Progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a ghost in the mirror (hallelujah, hallelujah)

**Author's Note:**

> b/c derek always gets the shitty end of the stick and stiles is actually the best friend in the world and i have way too many feelings about this show 
> 
> spoilers for season 4, takes place after 4x02 and includes an emotionally stunted werewolf and an exhausted teenage boy
> 
> (title from paper route's glass heart hymn!!)

The kitchen light is on when he gets home, and he takes care to lock the door behind him and lean the bat against the wall before toeing off his shoes and cautiously heading towards the source; his dad’s boots are on the mat, so he’s ninety-nine percent sure he’s screwed five ways to next Sunday, the added bonus of being home two hours after school night curfew notwithstanding. Stiles considers sneaking it for half a second, thinks about the payment notice on his dad’s desk instead, and settles with looking properly ashamed. Probably for the wrong reasons—tonight’s excuses are completely justifiable, thanks, if not way too soap opera-ish for him to fathom into explanations—but in the end, it’ll do the trick. Maybe.

It’s a small relief when he stumbles into the kitchen and finds his dad nursing a cup of coffee and not a tumbler full of liquid regret. Score one for Stiles.

“You’re late,” he says wearily, scrubbing at his hair. Stiles chews his bottom lip, still dry, still cracking. “Though I suppose I’m not surprised after earlier.”

“Sorry, there was—I don’t even know how to explain this. The important thing is that Derek is… not mini-Derek anymore?”

A beat of silence and Stiles entertains the idea of just feigning exhaustion and booking it to his room, but he’s too tired to burn another bridge, so he takes a seat across from his father and rests his chin on his arms. It earns him a half-smile, barely there, easing the knot in his chest into something less likely to flood his lungs.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“Uh.” There’s a tick in his jaw, leg jittering under the table, fingers drumming out an erratic rhythm. “Last night, sort of. I got a few hours in after we got back.”

His dad doesn’t take the bait and Stiles refuses to squirm under his dad’s scrutiny, eyes narrowed in worried suspicion. Stiles hasn’t bothered to pay much attention to the shadows beneath his own eyes or the nervous twitches whenever it gets too quiet, dividing his time by the people who need him: teaching Malia lessons in basic humanity, keeping Kira in the loop as much as possible, pouring over ridiculous articles on lore with Lydia that have next to no chance of being accurate, though interesting nonetheless. Even Scott is beginning to wear thin, and Stiles at least has the benefit of somewhat maintaining his grades even through the whole nogitsune disaster. He’s fine. He’s coping. There’s no time to reminisce about the could-have-beens.

“So you’re not sleeping at all,” his father argues. “You look exhausted, Stiles.”

“Pack business, saving people, the usual,” he mutters, shifting until his head is buried somewhere in the crook of his arm. If he stares at his dad too long, he’ll start to see the fractures. “I have three essays due on Friday.”

“Macbeth?”

“Gotta love the classics.”

“Go to bed, son,” and he sounds so _worn-out_ , every secret Stiles has ever kept curling tight in the hollow of his ribs, an ache that he falls asleep with on the nights he manages seven hours at best. “C’mon, off you go.”

His legs are miraculously steady when he stands, using the table as temporary support; his dad nods towards the stairs, but the air tastes too much like ash for him to leave like this.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, picking at the cuticle of his thumb and focusing on the _S_ magnet placed crooked on the fridge. He should fix it. He’ll fix it. Later. “For, you know, running off to Mexico. And bringing home a baby werewolf, even if Derek as a teenager is actually _more_ annoying than adult Derek, but whatever, he’s back to being a brooding werewolf with a multitude of issues even I—“

“You’re forgiven,” his dad cuts in with a sympathetic and slightly confused grimace, the look Stiles latches onto like a memory. “Now go to bed before I decide to ground you. I refilled your prescription, so if you need one, take one. _One_.”

Stiles mock-salutes, hesitates, then swings around the table and wraps his arms around his dad’s shoulders; warm hands trail the length of his spine in comfort and he breathes in the scent of his father’s aftershave, the bitter trace of stale coffee, and one a.m. hits him like a freight train—alive and whole, yes, they’re all breathing and licking their wounds, but it’s still the middle of the night and he has school in seven hours, has to be up in six, his dad _works_ in less than eight, yet here they are. Awkward and world-weary, standing in the middle of a kitchen that has barely been used in the last few weeks save for hastily made lunches and lonely dinners, and he remembers the bottle of whiskey heavy in his hands over a year ago.

He doesn’t look at his father before dragging himself out of the kitchen and up the stairs, figures he doesn’t really have to. It hurts less, anyway.

*

It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise when he reaches his room to find someone already there, but it’s not a were-coyote this time. It’s been a while since Derek used his room as a safe haven and Stiles manages to contain his scream, swallowing the panic before it has a chance to blossom.

“Welcome back,” Stiles mutters, and if there’s bitterness in his voice, he’ll blame it on the faint taste of medicinal residue on his tongue from the sleeping pill. Derek is silent because that’s all Derek ever is, in-between bouts of self-loathing and rage induced monosyllabic rants, and he barely acknowledges Stiles’ presence which is more annoying than it should be. He’s fucking _tired_. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Or like, doing anything that doesn’t involve hijacking my bed. I need sleep. Preferably at least four hours, if these stupid pills feel like doing their job.”

“Nightmares?” he asks, and it’s his voice—quiet, Derek’s own brand of fatigue dripping like acid off each syllable—that makes Stiles pause long enough to take him in. Same clothes from yesterday, magically regrown hair in places that were softer and younger only hours ago, hands fisted in tight balls of what Stiles can only assume is anger. Dark, purple-tinted bruises under his eyes. Stiles knows the feeling.

“Yeah,” he replies simply, shrugging. He tugs off his shirt and shucks his jeans, throwing both into the hamper before digging around in his top drawer for a pair of sweats and an oversized shirt with POLICE ACADEMY written in block font across the front. Derek has the decency to look away, fingers smoothing over the recently acquired photograph of Allison Stiles keeps on his desk; score two, though this victory rings empty in his gut.

“You never told Scott,” Derek begins, then cuts himself off with a snap of his jaw. Stiles merely runs a hand through his hair and flops backward on his bed; he’ll give what conversation he can, comfort, whatever, and then Derek can choose to either stay or go. It’s been a long night, an even longer weekend, and there’s too much white static when he closes his eyes to try and filter his brain-to-mouth connection, and he knows Derek isn’t going to give a shit if he’s hostile or not. Some things never change.

Derek fights himself for a few more minutes of painful silence. And then:

“How did you figure it out?”

“It wasn’t hard,” Stiles admits, rolling onto his side and tucking his hands under his cheek. Derek’s a silhouette against his window, and it can’t be comfortable to be leaning against the wall like that, yet he can’t find the words to offer up the other half of his bed. “I have a good memory and I saw the case files as a kid. I put two and two together after your psychotic uncle ripped out her throat.”

“And you never told Scott.”

Stiles sighs, frayed around the edges. The pill hasn’t kicked in. “No, Derek, I never told Scott. It wasn’t my business and, in my defense, I never thought it’d be relevant. Kinda figured even an Argent couldn’t cheat death and when it happened anyway, it happened to the wrong one.”

“I’m not mad.”

“Awesome, that’s great, glad we settled that—“

“ _Stiles_ ,” he interrupts, and Stiles uses what little tact he has left to bite his tongue. Derek clenches his jaw, unfurls his fingers, the skin a blistering red that’s already healed by the time Stiles catches it. “Thank you.”

“Oh.” It’s not what he’s expecting. Derek doesn’t smile, doesn’t give anything away, just relaxes his shoulders a bit when Stiles says, “Um, you’re welcome, I think?”

A nod. Stiles reaches out a hand and lays it palm-flat on the sheets of his bed, counts to five on each digit until the anxiety spreading thick through his veins eases into something more manageable.

Derek says, “You’re not always sure.” It’s not a question.

“The scans came back clean.” It’s not an answer.

The medical bills are stacking up and it leaves him feeling gutted, a carved out husk of sharp bones and misplaced teenage angst. It’s never suited him well, but. Even fox demons leave their marks.

He looks up, meets Derek’s stare head-on, and mutters, “If you’re gonna spend the night, get your ass on this bed and go to sleep. It’s too late to be brooding about the state of your life. Our lives. Whatever. We’re all pretty fucked up when you think about it.”

They can call it a pack thing, a way to lessen some of the tangible misery that’s been hanging over all of them the last few months, and when Derek actually unties his shoes and places them by Stiles’ bed, only to climb in seconds later, he absolutely counts that as victory number three for the night. Life can suck it, he’ll deal with it in the morning. With copious amounts of coffee. And Adderall. He’s got it _covered_ and, right now, all he wants to do is seek out the warmth Derek radiates, shifting close enough to leech off of him without completely destroying the thin boundary line that sits unspoken in the air. The moon is bright tonight, a sliver of pale light on his carpet.

And Derek’s hand is heat on the back of his neck.

“Your father’s in bed,” he assures, applying the slightest bit of pressure. “Go to sleep.” 

“Stop brooding,” Stiles argues back, though there’s no bite to it. Just an increasing sense of exhaustion, the sort of pleasant ache in the base of his skull that leaves him strangely content: a sleep not induced by sedatives or deprivation. “…thanks.”

Stiles lets his eyes slip closed, a laugh bubbling in his throat, and he burrows deeper into his pillow. He thinks he hears a quiet hum, but.

He files it away for tomorrow, tucks his ankles under the blanket at the end of his bed, and sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm fairly new to this fandom so if you wanna talk about dumb wolves and their packs feel free to hmu on [tumblr](http://dirthavarens.tumblr.com)!!


End file.
